Infamous hacker and developer, Steve Troughton-Smith has some inbound insight on iOS that he shared on Twitter last night. The developer hacked into the iOS Simulator to reveal a one-handed iPhone keyboard mode. Eerily, the code has been present since iOS 8 but has not been used since then. Could this be one of the front-facing features to be introduced later on?

Developer Finds One-Handed iPhone Keyboard Mode In iOS System Code

The iOS code inside iOS 8 states that the company was testing the feature when it was planning to release the aged old iPhone 6 and its bigger variant. One-handed keyboard is often useful on devices with a bigger screen real estate. So it makes perfect sense since it was centered towards the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, both of which were comparatively bigger variants than its predecessors. However, the feature did not make it to the public.

The developer reveals that one-handed iPhone keyboard mode can be activated with an edge swipe on the keyboard’s keys. The feature can be used from both edges of the display, so its centered for left-handed and right-handed users. The operation in general disclosed a sidebar with various controls like copy, paste and cut. When the one-handed keyboard mode is initiated, the rest of the keys are pressed to the other side of the screen. With this operation, one-handed use is comparatively easy than a standard full size keyboard.

The code revealed in iOS looks to be in its finest form, however, let’s just not take the functionality and transitions for granted. Nonetheless, it’s one of the features that could be released in the near future. The developer also recorded a video of his findings. Check out the details below for more information on the subject.

One of the solutions that Apple included in iOS 8 was the addition of Reachability. It’s one of the operations that we still use today to lower down content on the display. Ultimately, making the top portion of the screen reachable. There’s no news why Apple chose to forgo the addition of one-handed keyboard mode when the iPhone was in its transition phase of being bigger. Possibly, we will see the feature in next year’s iOS upgrade.

There are a lot of aspects resting within iOS that are not yet explored. We will probably see more details on this in the years to come. As for now, what do you think about the one-handed iPhone keyboard in iOS system code? Do you think Apple should have implemented this feature earlier? Let us know in the comments.